Cheap Advice On Music

So your band is playing three sets, with two 10- or 15-minute breaks to chat up the fans and visit the loo. What is coming through your PA during the breaks? Before you start playing? After? Probably nothing. This gives the club or restaurant owner (or party host) a chance to turn on their jukebox, or AM radio, or whatever they’ve got hooked to their in-house speakers, and play whatever tripe they want to. Their choice of interim music becomes part of your show.

So take control! Hook up a CD player to the PA and play what you want people to hear when you’re not onstage - stuff that goes with what your band plays - stuff that makes you sound good. (For example, don’t include any original versions of songs you are planning to mangle in your next set!)

There’s no need to drag along a regular CD player like you would use with your home stereo. Any portable unit (even the tiny ones) will be fine, as long as it has a headphone jack! Warning: you may have to devise a Rube Goldberg style set of adapters to get from 1/8″ stereo to TRS (or TS) mono, like I did. (Don’t forget to combine the stereo channels into mono at some point.) And use a fresh set of batteries every time!

[An expanded version of this Mini-Tip appears in my eBook, Cheap Advice On Live Sound.]